Do
you believe that literacy instruction is solely the charge of the ELA teachers?
Many math, history, science, or special area teachers think this; however, this
is not so. According to Richard Vaca,
author of Content Area Reading: Literacy
and Learning Across the Curriculum, “Adolescents entering the adult world
in the 21st century will read and write more than at any other time
in human history. They will need
advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as
citizens, and conduct their personal lives.” (Alber 2014)
It
is easy to only focus on the content we teach and covering the material. Each area has so much to tell and share with
the students. But, are we providing our students with time each day to practice
their communication skills?
Content
is WHAT we teach. On the flip side,
content is HOW we teach also. The HOW is
where literacy instruction plays a part.
There are numerous effective instructional strategies teachers can use
to get their students thinking about, writing about, and talking about the
content they teach. The ultimate goal of
literacy instruction is to build a student’s comprehension, writing skills, and
overall skills in communication.
We
want our students to be critical thinkers.
You can’t avoid thinking when you write.
Every day, in every classroom, students need to be writing. Teachers need to incorporate formal and
informal writing into their curriculum.
Quick writes, stop and jots, one-minute essays are examples of informal
writing.
Regardless
of the content we teach, we are all reading teachers. Scaffolding the reading by using effective
strategies for pre-, during, and after reading, such as: previewing text,
reading for a purpose, making predictions and connections, think alouds, and
using graphic organizers will benefit all our students, not just the struggling
readers.
Each
classroom needs a high-interest classroom library. Teachers can start their classroom with a few
book and add to it every year. Not all
the books need to be about the content area you teach. For example, a chemistry teacher doesn’t need
all science book, but the primary focus should be on informational, non-fiction
books and include a newspaper and magazine subscription.
HOW do you convey the content area information to your students? Straight lecture? Or, do you use multiple
instructional strategies for students to discover information on their own?
Alber, Rebecca. “How Important is Teaching Literacy in All Content
Areas?” Retrieved August 29, 2015 from www.edutopia.org/.../literacy-instruction-across-curriculum-imp.
Tami,
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree with your statement, “regardless of the content we teach, we are all reading teachers.” I teach technology and I have never seen a time in education where there was such a push to incorporate literacy skills into our curriculum. Most of the reading in my content area is way over students’ heads and I have to spend a lot of time breaking down vocabulary/terms for them. I teach them how to do research online and how to find appropriate resources. While I try and add some shirt writing assignments to my course, most of what they write is in the form of a list or short phrases. Even then, it is painful to get them to check their spelling and grammar and that all their formatting is correct.
I couldn't agree with you more! Teaching students to be literate is the responsiblity of all teachers, not just ELA teachers. In my classroom we use a variety of resources to learn about ancient cultures. These include their student textbooks, articles from magazines and online, library books, and sometimes even newspapers. I recently came across something called text mapping. It involves taking pages of the text for the lessson and combining them horizontally to create a long scroll. Then students mark it up finding key points, vocabulary words, or answers to specific questions. It defintely looks interesting and I'm going to give it a try in my next unit. If your interested take a look at this site. http://www.textmapping.org/scrolls.html
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more! Students must be critical thinkers when they write. Short writing assignments prompted with open ended questions are excellent formative assessments in all content areas!
ReplyDeleteAll content area teachers need to have books available to read. Early finishers should always be encouraged to be doing something with their time, and reading will is always a good option! Thanks for sharing!
Tami,
ReplyDeleteIn your opinion, are tools such as Newsela and Jelly Bean Scoop a good fit for literacy instruction in today's classroom?
Dr. Dell